Indiana

Third Congressional District

Democratic Committee

Labor Quotations

“Labor disgraces no man, but occasionally men disgrace labor."

~ Ulysses S. Grant ~

“Every calling is great when greatly pursued."

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes ~

“A man at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, is exercising the energies of his mind and soul as well as of his body. Memory and imagination help him as he works. Not only his own thoughts, but the thoughts of the men of past ages guide his hands; and, as part of the human race, he creates. If we work thus we shall be men, and our days will be happy and eventful."

~ William Morris ~

“The intellectual equipment needed for the job of the future is an ability to define problems, quickly assimilate relevant data, conceptualize and reorganize the information, make deductive and inductive leaps with it, ask hard questions about it, discuss findings with colleagues, work collaboratively to find solutions and then convince others."

~ Robert B. Reich ~

“Men have become the tools of their trade."

~ Henry David Thoreau ~

“When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die."

~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~

“It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living."

~ Jean Jacques Rousseau ~

“Wanting to work is so rare a merit that it should be encouraged."

~ Abraham Lincoln ~

“If the power to do hard work is not a skill, it's the best possible substitute for it."

~ James A. Garfield ~

“Even in the meanest sorts of labor, the whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of real harmony the instant he sets himself to work."

~ Thomas Carlyle ~

“Every man is dishonest who lives upon the labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne."

~ Robert Green Ingersoll ~

“I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living."

~ John D. Rockefeller ~

“Labor is work that leaves no trace behind it when it is finished, or if it does, as in the case of the tilled field, this product of human activity requires still more labor, incessant, tireless labor, to maintain its identity as a "work" of man."

~ Mary McCarthy ~

“Manual labor to my father was not only good and decent for its own sake but, as he was given to saying, it straightened out one's thoughts."

~ Mary Ellen Chase ~

“The end of labor is to gain leisure."

--Aristotle ~

“To open avenues to political place and power for all classes of women would cause [the] humble labors of the family and school to be still more undervalued and shunned."

~ Catharine Esther Beecher ~

“Don't be condescending to unskilled labor. Try it for a half a day first."

~ Brooks Atkinson ~

“One of the saddest things is that the only thing that a man can do for eight hours a day, day after day, is work. You can't eat eight hours a day nor drink for eight hours a day nor make love for eight hours --all you can do for eight hours is work. Which is the reason why man makes himself and everybody else so miserable and unhappy."

~ William Faulkner ~

Paid for and authorized by the Indiana Third Congressional District Democratic Committee, Carmen Darland, Chair.